


Bee Cave

by hotlinemiamy



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29074725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotlinemiamy/pseuds/hotlinemiamy
Summary: Dell Conagher never had a "normal" childhood - especially when father's mercenary life bled in. Brief, disjointed snippets of the Conaghers' lives in Bee Cave, Texas before 1968. Mostly random headcanons I've had from RP.
Relationships: BLU Engineer/Original Character(s), engineer (team fortress 2)/original character, engineer (team fortress classic)/original character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. First Body

**1925**

Fred Conagher was startled awake by three sounds all at once: his wife’s shriek, a gunshot, and horses panicking. He fumbled for his rifle, but by the time he got to the barn - it was over.

She was alive, red flecked across her face and nightgown, pointing a shotgun at a fresh corpse collapsed in the straw. Fred lowered his rifle and felt the breath he’d held leave him like a deflating balloon.

“Millie?”

Millie panted heavily, eyes wide and wild at the corpse she was responsible for. Fred reached out and put a hand in her shoulder. She startled under him, rapid blinks, then finally turned to him. Eyes immediately softened behind wisps of copper hair.

A pause passed. She looked to him, then the corpse, then somewhere in between, nowhere in particular. She swallowed, then nodded in several short, quick bobs.

“I’m - I’m okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Fred’s hand slid from her shoulder and rubbed her back, as gently as his calloused hands could. Then he looked to the body. The man was on his back, a bloody hole clean through a well-tailored tuxedo. His head was turned, just enough for him to recognize…

“Christ, that’s—“

“Your Spy friend from New Mexico,” Millie finished, voice cold. “I heard the horses fussin’…. went to check. He snuck up and pointed a knife at my back. Wanted to know where you and that briefcase was.”

Fred’s blood ran cold. The thought of that RED bastard laying hands on his wife made him want to take the shotgun and put extra buck in him. It would be another 30 years before ceasefire meant ceasefire, much less decent security for BLU’s intelligence papers.

“Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“I think… the knife tore at my gown when I turned around to shoot ‘im, but… am I bleeding?”

Fred looked at her back. His hand drifted down to the tear of fabric and felt his blood go colder. No blood, no wound, but still too goddamn close.

For now, he forced himself calm. He shook his head, then kissed her temple. She sighed and ran her hand through her thick hair. Mildred Conagher was a hardy woman. She knew how to take care of herself and the ranch when he was away on business, but that didn’t ease his mind. RED and their goddamn Spy still came after his family.

“Guess we… gotta bury him,” she said quietly. “No sense calling the police or haulin’ him back.”

“Nope.”

“Back of the barn?”

“Yep.”

* * *

They were only a foot into a shallow grave when Fred heard a twig crack. He snapped around, business-end of a shovel pointed outward—and stopped when he realized he had to look down. Two sleepy blue eyes peeked back at him around the corner of the barn, small fingers curled around the old wood.

“Daddy?”

Oh, god dammit.

Before he or Millie could react, their son stepped into view with his favorite stuffed dog plush in his arms. He looked to the hole, then the Spy next to it, now half-covered in an old horse blanket.

“Dell?” Fred finally said. “When’d you get out of bed, kid?”

Millie, eyes the size of dinner plates now, seemed to suddenly be aware the dirt and blood on her gown, and swore quietly under her breath as she hastily tied her robe. Fred looked between her and their son, quiet for a moment. Finally, he sighed, set the shovel down, and picked Dell up.

“Fred—“

“Mildred, he already saw ‘im.”

Any hopes of them trying to hide the deed was out the window, in Fred’s eyes. He never believed in hiding much beyond what his contract told him to keep mum… and Dell was too damn curious to boot. Before Millie could protest, Dell pointed at the grisly remains of the Spy.

“Is he… sleepy?”

Christ. Two years old and already asking tough questions. Fred sighed through his nose.

“Dead, son. He’s dead.”

Dell was quiet for a moment. His brows knit together as he leaned on his father’s shoulder. Fred could see the gears turning in his little mind. They’d talked about death before, back when a fox raided the henhouse, but Fred never knew if the idea stuck until now.

“Why?”

“He… well. He tried to hurt your Mama.”

“Mama hurt?”

Millie blinked. Fred could tell that they were going to have a hell of a conversation about this later. Foxes were one thing… hired killers were another. Despite it, though – she smiled. Through the worry, the exhaustion, the blood – everything. Bless that woman. She had outrun the Dust Bowl when they first met. Nothing kept her down – not for long.

“No, baby. Mama’s not hurt. Just had to take care of a bad man.”

“Bad man,” Dell repeated, as resolute as a toddler could be.

Small and quiet as he was, Fred could tell his son had made up his mind.


	2. First Bullet

**1938**

Fred Conagher swerved a hard right on the dirt road toward Bee Cave in a rusty pickup truck he knew he was pushing past it’s limit. His fifteen-year-old son immediately hits the passenger-side door.

“Son of a BITCH!” The boy half-shouted through gritted teeth as he pressed a blood-drenched towel further into his hip.

“Christ, boy,” Fred said abruptly, voice on edge. The tone of a man barely holding his composure. “You cuss worse than your grandma.”

“I ain’t even been shot before, Pop!”

Fred felt himself deflate.

“I know, son,” he said, voice losing that stern edge, giving away what he really felt: worry. “S’gonna be alright. Bullet went clean through. We’re gonna getcha to the hospital, getcha sticked up… you’re gonna be fine.”

“I know, Pop,” Dell said weakly, tiredly – the kind of tired that scared Fred all over again. He knew the boy would be fine – but that didn’t stop him from aching every time he saw blood.

“Hey. I said you’re gonna be fine. Hear me?” The elder Conagher said, briefly taking his eyes off the road to glance at his son. Dell looked back. His face was a mix of exhaustion, wild-eyed delirium… and a weak, shit-eating smile.

He was goddamn _proud_ of himself.

“You ever been shot, Pop?”

Fred went silent. He turned back to the road.

“Plenty of times,” he finally answered after a long time – too long, to the point where would have written the question off as ignored. “Don’t tell your mother.”

“In New Mexico?”

“Yup.”

“That guy… he was from New Mexico, right?”

More silence.

"Pop.”

He twisted his grip on the steering wheel of his half-dead truck – the one damn vehicle that wasn’t borrowed or busted that night. He felt Dell watching from the corner of his vision. Quiet, expectant. Chest falling and rising.

Fred knew he had to tell him one day.

"He was a Scout from the other side,” He finally said, voice forced even as he shifted gears. They were finally off the dirt road and hit asphalt, towards the town proper. “’Other side’ bein’ the folks I need to protect mine from. He was tryin’ to get at the papers I keep in the safe.”

“What’s in ‘em? The papers?”

“I don’t know. It ain’t my business to know.”

Dell blinked. Fred held in a spike of agitation. When something got that Dell’s interest, he never stopped asking about it. Soft-spoken yet relentless. Most folks in Bee Cave raised farmers and football players. Fred had a sponge for a son. Soaking up everything he heard, read… between that and his machines, Fred wouldn’t be surprised if he followed in his footsteps. But hopefully not like this.

“Why’d…” Dell started, shifting and wincing in between. “Why’d you take a job for a place you ain’t supposed to know nothin’ about?”

“Good money, for starters. I don’t get paid to ask questions. Questions don’t keep this family afloat,” Fred said. Dell blinked at that. “Besides. It lets me build what I like… and gets you baseball bats, I reckon.”

Dell laughed weakly. Good. Fred wanted to change the subject anyway. “I beaned that jackass good, huh?”

“Language,” Fred said evenly. “And you only clipped his shoulder.”

“He was fast!” Dell argued with slightly delirious excitement. Fred couldn’t tell if it was pride or blood loss at this point. “Even before you grabbed the gun! Like a… like a jackrabbit or somethin’!”

“A dead one now, I reckon.”


	3. First Crush

**1938**

“Let me see it.”

15-year-old Dell blinked up at Catalina from under the hood of his father’s car. Catalina, a girl with Ingrid Bergman curls, set her hands on her hips and looked back at him with a frown.

“Huh?”

“Your wound,” she said. Her eyes narrowed. “Let me see it.”

Well, hell. How did she find out?

Dell felt his heart drop in his gut. Slowly, he grabbed a pair of crutches and slipped them under his arms. He then circled around the hood with several practiced hops and leaned against the door of the Hudson. First, he peeked at the garage door. She’d come alone plenty of times – the Castillo farm was a three-minute walk from the Conagher Ranch – but there was always a chance Mr. Castillo came with, either to ask Dell a favor or shoot the shit with his old man.

“Papa’s not here,” Catalina said as she looked to his shirt and lifted her chin. “Go on.”

Dell felt his cheeks burn, but those pretty brown eyes burning holes through his scared him more than the embarrassment. He untucked the corner of his shirt with a free hand and lifted it, just enough to show the bandage on his hip, where the bullet hole was stitched.

Catalina brushed her dark hair away from her face and leaned down look it. Her stern expression softened somewhat.

“A burglar did this?”

“Yeah. I, uh… fought him off. Heh.”

Not really. Dell clocked his shoulder with a baseball bat, then took a bullet, then his father came downstairs with a shotgun. Close enough, though.

“Poor thing,” She said suddenly. He jolted as she ran a light finger over the gauze, right over the week-old stitches. Maybe… she WASN’T mad?

“Ah, it’s gravy,” He said. He let out a nervous chuckle and fumbled for his confidence. “Bullet went clean through.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Nah, not rea—”

Catalina flicked a finger into his stitches. _Hard._

Dell yelped and dropped a crutch.

“Who are you, Hopalong Cassidy?!” She straightened up. “You think you’re a cowboy? _Huh?!”_

He stumbled into the Hudson behind him and grabbed his hip. Catalina rounded on him with a heavy slap to the arm and a flurry of insults in Spanish. He knew most of them. They weren’t pretty.

“Hey, hey, HEY—”

“You almost get yourself killed and you don’t even tell me?!” She yelled with a second slap. Dell put his free arm up over his face. “You don’t show up to school for days! I call and find out from your little sister that you were in the damned hospital last – _week!”_

The words punctuate one last slap. Dell winces.

“I’m…” He swallows. “I’m sorry! I’m… I didn’t want you to know. I’m sorry.”

_“Why?”_

“Because I didn’t want to worry you, dammit!”

“I’m worried!” She shouts between a breath. “You disappear for days and don’t tell me and you don’t think I’ll worry? You act like you’re so _smart_ and you—”

Her voice cracks. Then her hands fly to her own face in an attempt to cover up the beginnings of tears.

“Hey, heyheyhey…” Dell stops. Hesitates. Then swallows and reaches out to gently touch her arm. He's thankful that she doesn’t pull away. “You ain’t gotta be. It’s handled. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Catalina sobs quietly. Suddenly, she leans in his shoulder. He feels himself go bright red. It takes him a second to find the courage to hold her, slipping his free arm behind her back and pulling her close.

God, he REALLY hoped Mr. Castillo wouldn’t show up now.

“Papa was right,” She says into his shoulder. “You’re a reckless idiot… and your Spanish is terrible.”

“I’m sorry,” He repeated. “You’re right. _He’s_ right. He never liked me anyway, but he’s right.”

“You’re lucky I do,” she said quietly.

“What?”

She looked up. Ingrid Bergman curls and the prettiest damn eyes he’d ever seen.

“I LIKE you, you idiot. And I want you to stay alive.”


End file.
